Moi began the ‘Joy Jar’ when the Mayan Calendar or end of the world thing went bust. This is a one year exercise about being grateful. At the half way point of the exercise, moi surveys her future moi claims the prophecy of::

Jeremiah 29:11

New International Version (NIV)

11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a bright future with expectation.

Being fully present is the best guarantee for a bright future.
Guy Finley

It’s hard to accept, but you can’t change the past. You can’t go back and manipulate things to the way you wanted them to happen. Because life’d be meaningless and boring and just not worth living. But you can change the future and that’s a beautiful thing about life. Yes, you will make mistakes. And yes, you will have bad days, but as long as you let the past go, you’ll have such a gorgeous and bright future ahead of you. Knowing that things were meant to happen. Knowing that each day you will learn something so that you keep growing to be a better person. Life is like a rope, twined in all its complexities and yet weaved into one marvelous stream that you have the chance you use something amazing from. So grab hold of it.

Kayode Anthony

“We are what we believe we are!”
C.S. Lewis

“Your future is only as bright as your mind is open.”

Rich Wilkins

Keep standing, keep believing and keep hoping because God has a bright future in store for you!

Moi had a fun day as she spent time at the pacific Science Center in Seattle to preview the new Imaginate Exhibit. It was very hands-on. That got moi thinking about creativity and innovation. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is innovation.

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.
Steve Jobs

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.
Katharine Hepburn

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
Peter Drucker

You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.
Denis Waitley

“Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.”
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn’t work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”
Roger Von Oech

There are no perfect people, no one has a perfect life and everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, children do not come with instruction manuals, which give specific instructions about how to relate to that particular child. Further, for many situations there is no one and only way to resolve a problem. What people can do is learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others. Craig Playstead has assembled a top ten list of mistakes made by parents and they should be used as a starting point in thinking about your parenting style and your family’s dynamic.

1) Spoiling kids

2) Inadequate discipline

3) Failing to get involved at school

4) Praising mediocrity

5) Not giving kids enough responsibility

6) Not being a good spouse

7) Setting unreal expectations

8) Not teaching kids to fend for themselves

9) Pushing trends on kids

10) Not following through

Playstead also has some comments about stage parents.

Let kids be kids. Parents shouldn’t push their trends or adult outlook on life on their kids. Just because it was your life’s dream to marry a rich guy doesn’t mean we need to see your 4-year-old daughter in a “Future Trophy Wife” t-shirt. The same goes for the double ear piercing—that’s what you want, not them. Teaching kids about your passions is great, but let them grow up to be who they are. And yes, this goes for you pathetic stage parents as well. It’s hard enough for kids to figure out who they are in the world without you trying to turn them into what you couldn’t be.

In an ongoing series of studies, Temple University researchers Laurence Steinberg and Jason M. Chein and their colleagues have found that teenagers take more risks and are more sensitive to potential rewards when they think peers are watching them—even if they consciously believe they aren’t affected by peer pressure.

“Although it’s very, very tempting to assign consciousness to teenagers’ motivations and behavior—to say they are doing something because ‘they don’t understand the consequences,’ ‘they think they are invincible,’ ‘they want to impress their friends’—what we think we’re finding is [risk-taking] has a much more biological basis to it,” said Mr. Chein, the director of Temple University’s Neurocognition Lab.

In studies discussed in the April special issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science on “the teenage brain,” the Temple researchers found 14- to 16-year-olds take significantly more risks, and are more responsive to potential rewards, when other teenagers are around than when they are by themselves.

“In the same way a young child is developing in the context of her family environment, a middle schooler and high schooler is developing in the context of peers,” said Kevin M. King, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle, who was not part of the Temple research.

“There are huge changes in the social environment,” he said. “[Adolescents] are going from one classroom to many, from parents’ making all the early friendship choices to making [their] own.”

Focused on Rewards

And that new freedom to make their own choices comes just when students start taking more risks in the company of peers.

Mr. Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple, and Mr. Chein presented study participants with a game in which a player was shown a card labeled with a number between one and nine, and had to guess whether the next card would be higher or lower, with players told before some rounds that they would receive a reward or no reward for a correct guess.

The game was rigged: A computer randomly ensured each player guessed right exactly half the time. The participants played under functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which measures electrical activity in the brain, allowing the researchers to gauge how much players were responding to the possibility of rewards.

Both adults and adolescents had more brain activity for a potential reward than for none, but teenagers showed significantly higher response to potential rewards when they were told (untruthfully) that another teenager was watching from another room. Adults, by contrast, showed no change when told of being watched.

The findings build on a 2009 study by Mr. Steinberg that found, among 14- to 16-year-olds, younger teenagers took twice as many risks in a timed driving simulation when with peers than when tested alone. Older teenagers took 50 percent more risks when doing the simulation course with friends than alone.

Channeling Peer Power

In a study of binge drinking, Mr. King found adolescents who are deciding to drink weigh negative effects such as having a hangover or getting in a fight less than they weigh perceived social benefits, such as increased confidence and the ability to speak with others.

Both the Temple and University of Washington researchers are separately exploring interventions to help teenagers take a step back mentally in social situations, turning an emotional decision into a more rational one….

Abstract

Research efforts to account for elevated risk behavior among adolescents have arrived at an exciting new stage. Moving beyond laboratory studies of age differences in risk perception and reasoning, new approaches have shifted their focus to the influence of social and emotional factors on adolescent decision making. We review recent research suggesting that adolescent risk-taking propensity derives in part from a maturational gap between early adolescent remodeling of the brain’s socioemotional reward system and a gradual, prolonged strengthening of the cognitive-control system. Research has suggested that in adolescence, a time when individuals spend an increasing amount of time with their peers, peer-related stimuli may sensitize the reward system to respond to the reward value of risky behavior. As the cognitive-control system gradually matures over the course of the teenage years, adolescents grow in their capacity to coordinate affect and cognition and to exercise self-regulation, even in emotionally arousing situations. These capacities are reflected in gradual growth in the capacity to resist peer influence.

Many parents want tips about how to talk with their kids about risky behaviors and whether they should spy on their children.

Perhaps the best advice comes from Carleton Kendrick in the Family Education article, Spying on Kids

Staying connected

So how do you make sure your teens are on the straight and narrow? You can’t. And don’t think you can forbid them to experiment with risky behavior. That’s what they’re good at during this stage, along with testing your limits. You can help them stay healthy, safe, and secure by doing the following:

Keep communicating with your teens, even if they don’t seem to be listening. Talk about topics that interest them.

Respect and ask their opinions.

Give them privacy. That doesn’t mean you can’t knock on their door when you want to talk.

Set limits on their behavior based on your values and principles. They will grudgingly respect you for this.

Continually tell them and show them you believe in who they are rather than what they accomplish.

Seek professional help if your teen’s abnormal behaviors last more than three weeks.

A 1997 landmark adolescent health study, which interviewed over 12,000 teenagers, concluded that the single greatest protection against high-risk teenage behavior, like substance abuse and suicide, is a strong emotional connection to a parent. Tough as it may be, you should always try to connect with them. And leave the spying to James Bond. It will only drive away the children you wish to bring closer.

In truth, a close relationship with your child will probably be more effective than spying. Put down that Blackberry, iPhone, and Droid and try connecting with your child. You should not only know who your children’s friends are, but you should know the parents of your children’s friends. Many parents have the house where all the kids hang out because they want to know what is going on with their kids. Often parents volunteer to chauffeur kids because that gives them the opportunity to listen to what kids are talking about. It is important to know the values of the families of your kid’s friends. Do they furnish liquor to underage kids, for example? How do they feel about teen sex and is their house the place where kids meet for sex?Lisa Frederiksen has written the excellent article, 10 Tips for Talking to Teens About Sex, Drugs & Alcohol which was posted at the Partnership for A Drug-Free America

So, in answer to the question should you spy on your Kids? Depends on the child. Some children are more susceptible to peer pressure and impulsive behavior than others. They will require more and possibly more intrusive direction. Others really are free range children and have the resources and judgment to make good decisions in a variety of circumstances. Even within a family there will be different needs and abilities. The difficulty for parents is to make the appropriate judgments and still give each child the feeling that they have been treated fairly. Still, for some kids, it is not out of line for parents to be snoops, they just might save the child and themselves a lot of heartache.

Moi is grateful that she lives in a country which allows her to gather information on a variety of topics. Information is not wisdom, nor is it knowledge. Information is simply the first step. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the freedom to read and listen to a variety of sources.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Mark Twain

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
Winston Churchill

It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.
Oscar Wilde

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot

Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.
Clifford Stoll

Information is not knowledge.
Albert Einstein

An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious – just dead wrong.
Russell Baker

Moi is not a big cell phone user. She uses it on a need to use basis mainly because it is smarter than she is. She wanted to use the phone, but it wouldn’t work. Finally, she figured out that it wasn’t they battery or anything she did. The SIM card died or isn’t working. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is a working cell phone just in case.

“Right, my phone. When these things first appeared, they were so cool. Only when it was too late did people realize they are as cool as electronic tags on remand prisoners.”
David Mitchell, Ghostwritten

“Technology offers us a unique opportunity, though rarely welcome, to practice patience.”
Allan Lokos, Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living

But I’m acutely aware that the possibility of fraud is even more prevalent in today’s world because of the Internet and cell phones and the opportunity for instant communication with strangers.
Armistead Maupin

Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized.
Marilyn vos Savant

I think we have the attention span of a gnat. You know, with cell phones and Twitter.
Jeff Daniels

Community colleges were created to democratize both American higher education and the students who came through their open doors (Brint and Karabel 1989; Gleazer 1994). However, some observers have argued that community colleges have become overly focused on diverting students into low- and mid-level occupations and that they have not played a major role in transforming perpetuated structures of inequality. With a rapid growth trajectory, America’s 1,166 community colleges now serve increasingly diverse populations. Community college leaders need to recommit to three essential missions: developing strong transfer programs that provide students with equal educational opportunities; preparing students for twenty-first century careers; and preparing students for the work of democracy in the world’s dominant democracy. Service-learning is the leading pedagogy that community colleges can employ to achieve these missions and truly become civically engaged campuses in the communities they serve.

Daniel de Vise has a great article in the Washington Post, 25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College which reports online information from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. Going to a community college is one way to reduce the cost of college.

Goldie Blumenstyk writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education article, 2-Year Colleges Are at Risk of ‘Separate and Unequal’ Future, Report Says:

Community colleges “are in great danger of becoming indelibly separate and unequal institutions in the higher-education landscape,” a Century Foundation task force warns in a report being released here on Thursday. To deal with what it calls “the increasing economic and racial isolation of students” at community colleges, the group also calls for major changes in how two-year colleges are financed and operated.

Among its recommendations, the group urges states and the federal government to provide additional funds to two-year colleges that serve the neediest students, much in the way the federal Title I program works for elementary and secondary schools. In states where constitutional guarantees of education might extend to higher education, the report suggests that advocates even consider filing lawsuits to require such “adequate funding” of community colleges.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Century Foundation today released the final report of a task force convened in February 2012 to study the country’s community colleges and make recommendation for their sustainability and improvement. The report was released at an event featuring task force co-chairs Eduardo Padrón (president of Miami-Dade College in Florida) and Anthony Marx (former president of Amherst College in Massachusetts and president of the New York Public Library), as well as the U.S. undersecretary of education, Martha Kanter.

The Century Foundation Releases Final Report of Community College Task Force

WASHINGTON, D.C.–

The Century Foundation (www.TCF.org) today released the final report of a task force convened in February 2012 to study the country’s community colleges and make recommendation for their sustainability and improvement. The report was released at an event featuring task force co chairs Eduardo Padrón (president of Miami Dade College in Florida) and Anthony Marx (former president of Amherst College in Massachusetts and president of the New York Public Library), as well as the U.S. undersecretary of education, Martha Kanter.

“We were fortunate to have some of the brightest and most experienced thinkers and practitioners in higher education on the task force,” said Century Foundation senior fellow Richard D. Kahlenberg, executive director of the group , which was funded by the Ford Foundation. ” While a lot of great work is already being done on community colleges, what distinguishes this group is its commitment to addressing growing economic and racial stratification in higher education that makes the work of two year institutions so difficult.”

Among the report’s findings is a high noncompletion rate among community college students:

Eighty one percent of students entering community college for the first time saying they eventually want to transfer and earn at least a bachelor’s degree but just 12 percent do so within six years.

Among low income students with “high” qualifications for college (those who have completed “at least Trigonometry”), 69 percent of students who began in a four year institution earned a bachelor’s degree, compared with just 19 percent of those who started in a community college.

The report also highlights the comparative lack of investment in community colleges, even though they enroll, educate, and train a larger and more diverse population than any other segment of higher education:

More than 60 percent of community college students receive some developmental/remedial education, at an estimated cost of $2 billion per year. While wealthy students outnumber poor students at the most selective four year colleges by 14:1, community colleges educate twice as many low income students as high income students.

Between 1999 and 2009, community college funding increased just one dollar per student, while per student funding at private research universities jumped almost $14,000.

“We are proud of our mission and success as an open door to educational achievement and workforce success,” said task force co chair Padrón. “But community colleges lack adequate resources. They will continue to play an enormous role in our country, and policy makers need to step up to help.” In addition to confronting the challenges faced by community colleges, the task force commissioned three original academic research papers and made specific policy recommendations. Those eight recommendations – to improve funding of community colleges and reduce racial and economic stratification between two and four year institutions –are:

•Adopting a federal “adequacy based” funding formula in higher education similar to federal and state programs for K–12 schools that will make extra resources available to schools and populations with the highest poverty and remediation needs, and that otherwise need the most assistance.

•Establishing greater transparency in public financial subsidies to higher education.

•Encouraging growth in redesigned institutions that facilitate connections between community and four year colleges.

•Taking concrete steps to improve community college transfers to four year institutions

•Encouraging innovations such as Honors Programs to build more inclusive and diverse student populations in community colleges.

•Promoting innovations in early college programs that enhance community college diversity.

•Prioritizing funding for new programs at economically and racially isolated community colleges.

•Incentivizing four year institutions to engage in affirmative action for low wealth students.

“It’s not just about funding. Four year colleges have a great role to play here —especially the highly selective ones,” said Marx. “When we created transfer positions at Amherst for community college graduates, we learned that those who came from two year schools had higher GPA and completion rates than our overall student body.”

The complete task force report and background research papers are here:

The first of three reports, “A Matter of Degrees: Promising Practices for Community College Student Success” was released last week. It draws attention to 13 strategies for increasing retention and graduation rates, including fast-tracking remedial education, providing students with experiential learning, and requiring students to attend orientation.

The strategies specified in the report are not new. In fact, many of them can be found at two-year colleges right now. But how well those strategies are working to help students stay in college and graduate is another matter. The report found peculiarities among responses on similar topics, suggesting a disconnect between institutions and students, while also raising questions about how committed institutions are to their own policies and programs.

For example, 74 percent of students said they were required to take academic-placement tests, but only 28 percent said they used materials or resources provided by the college to prepare for those tests. While 44 percent of participating colleges report offering some sort of test preparation, only 13 percent make test preparation mandatory, the report said.

Also, 42 percent of part-time students and 19 percent of full-time students work more than 30 hours per week. More than half care for dependents. But only 26 percent of entering students reported that a college staff member counseled them about how many courses to take while balancing commitments outside of class.

Colleges need to figure out a way to better align their programs and policies with the needs and realities of their students, Ms. McClenney says. The report found a sizable gap between the percentage of students who plan to graduate and those who actually do, suggesting that what colleges think works may not be helping retain and graduate students. In fact, fewer than half (45 percent) of entering community-college students actually graduate with either a certificate or associate degree within six years after enrolling at an institution, according to the report….

Requiring Success

This is the first time that the research organization has analyzed data from four surveys and combined the results into a multiyear project. The responses came from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement, the Survey of Entering Student Engagement, the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, and the newly created Community College Institutional Survey….

A major stumbling block for community-college students is remedial education. Many students languish in those reading, writing, or math classes and eventually drop out, curtailing their transfer or graduation plans. The problem is especially acute among minorities and low-income students.

But the report says that among institutions that have accelerated or fast-tracked remedial courses, only 13 percent require students to enroll in those courses. That’s a missed opportunity, because earlier research suggests that students who take those intensive classes perform equally as well as, or better than, students in traditional remedial education.

The report found similar results regarding orientation services, which include providing students with information on navigating the library and finding support services such as academic and mental-health counseling. Previous research shows that participation in orientation leads to greater use of support services and improved retention of at-risk students, the report says. However, among colleges that offer orientation programs, only 38 percent report that they require it for all first-time students. http://chronicle.com/article/Community-College-Study-Asks-/130606/

Ashley Marchand writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education about strategies which can help community college students succeed.

In 6 Strategies Can Help Entering Community-College Students Succeed, Marchand reports:

The six benchmarks listed in the report offer staff members and administrators ideas about how to help more students stay in college and graduate or transfer. They are fostering “college readiness” programs for high-school students, connecting early with students, encouraging faculty and staff members to have high expectations for students, providing a clear academic path, engaging students in the learning process, and maintaining an academic and social-support network. http://chronicle.com/article/6-Strategies-Can-Help-Entering/64871/

In the article, Community Colleges Address Financial Barriers to Success For Low-income Students which was published in the Sacramento Bee:

Of the close to 8 million credit students annually attending community colleges, 46% currently receive some form of financial aid (state, federal, or institutional). The additional benefits the students might access through BACC include a range of federal programs, such as those that provide health insurance, food, and child care. Such support services are especially critical for community college students, many of whom juggle work, studies, and family responsibilities. http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/08/4248177/community-colleges-address-financial.html

Given the numbers of students attending community college and the population demographic, more must be done to help this students graduate.

Moi knows that in some quarters it is fashionable to hate America and what it stands for. Many of those who think this is the worst country in the world wouldn’t leave if you took a crowbar to them. They know that there is no such thing as perfection, no matter they simply want something to hate. Through a fortunate accident of fate, moi was born an American. Moi is grateful for the sacrifices so many have made for her. Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is the gratitude moi feels for being born an American.

I love America more than any other country in this world; and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

James Baldwin

America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.

James T. Farrell

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom “to” and freedom “from.”

Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy.

Paul Sweeney

What the people want is very simple. They want an America as good as its promise.

Barbara Jordan

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

Elmer Davis

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. Theodore Roosevelt

America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them.

James Michener

If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. ~Hamilton Fish

To me, being an American means feeling safe.

Currielene Armstrong

Only Americans can hurt America.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.